Why Joe Issa Backs Holness Support for Junior Market to Enhance Wellbeing of Jamaican Families

Executive Chairman of Cool Corporation, Joe Issa, has said that the decision by Prime Minister Andrew Holness to continue the policy of subsidizing the Junior Stock Market will ensure that it spawns a new generation of entrepreneurs coming from Jamaican families.

 

“There is sufficient evidence that the junior market is enabling the small and medium business sector to raise capital and expand and create jobs for Jamaican families. The fact that they don’t have to borrow is a huge advantage…they can raise funds which they could never afford to borrow,” says Issa.

 

Issa stated that by virtue of the rules, “the development of the junior market will further benefit Jamaican families, who largely own it and from which the new breed of entrepreneurs will emerge, recognizing the strong tradition of succession planning in Jamaican-owned companies particularly in the small and medium sector.”

 

He further stressed that supporting the junior board is like supporting families, which is a major focus of the new administration, says Issa, who is a strong family man, already thinking of succession planning, even if his kids are only about four and five years old.

 

To be eligible for listing on the junior stock market, the company must have, within the first five years, a minimum of 25 shareholders holding at least 25% of the equity share capital; and in the next five years, at least 50 such shareholders.

Listed companies can raise any amount between $51 million and $500 million through an IPO (Initial Public Offering).

 

Other benefits to the junior market include tax breaks - 0% in the first five years and 25% of the regular tax rate in the next five years. There are reduced trading fees and exemption from transfer tax on shares as well as stamp duty on such transfers.

 

Since it was launched in 2009, total capital raised on the Junior Market now stands at $4.94 billion, with market capitalization of $75.6 billion.

“We have seen that through the Junior Market a new breed of Jamaican entrepreneurs is emerging; one which is striving to build new and profitable companies in varying sectors of the economy, and which we believe will open doors after doors for young people who are graduating from one tertiary institution or another…,” general manager of the Jamaica Stock Exchange, Marlene Street-Forrest is quoted as saying.

Stating that the junior market is growing and investors are making use of the secondary market to trade their securities, she recalls, “In 2010, our first full year of the Junior Market, the number of transactions was 1,192 and now only three months into the year, the number of transactions is 5,145.”

 

Since the inception of the Junior Market three billion shares have been trading valued at over $18 billion, and since the start of the year the index has increased by just-under eight per cent, Street-Forrest said.